


flowers for (y)our memory

by thethrillof



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Flowers, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 02:09:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12546480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thethrillof/pseuds/thethrillof
Summary: "I brought you something," he tells the light in the sky. "I thought you might like it."(Shadow's had a hard life. Don't begrudge him being upset and speaking to the dead.)





	flowers for (y)our memory

**Author's Note:**

> some 5-AM impulse writing i fixed up a little bit.

Maria has no grave.

Not to herself. The government took all of the ARK’s dead and put them in the same place, left to rot beneath the earth in a graveyard filled with nameless headstones. The largest monument isn’t a grave at all, just a pillar with some false sentiment; worn words along the lines of **_“To honor the brave scientists that gave their lives for the betterment of humanity”._**

The Ultimate Life Form he may be-–but even if Shadow's memory were perfect, untampered, he doubts he would remember the exact phrasing. He only read it once before he left, the sonic boom he left behind rattling the leaves from the surrounding trees clear off. He knew that’s what happened, as the leaves caught in his trail of wind and stuck to his quills once he coasted to a stop far, far away.

It was cowardice, but he could never go back there. The thought left him physically ill to the point he couldn’t move. _How disrespectful._

Lingering guilt and self-disgust aside, even if he found which one was her, if any grave and cluster of bone was her in the first place--she didn’t die down here, though she must've wished it.

He knew the ARK’s orbit. Perhaps it was simple skill, perhaps it was programmed instinct, but it never took him long to pinpoint it after the sun sank below the horizon. When he thought of Maria--spoke to her, honored her memory more truly than the Guardian Unit of Nations ever could--it was with his eyes on the glint that most would mistake for a star.

"I brought you something," he says from atop a hill, miles and miles from any city or town. No civilization’s light would interrupt him here. "I thought you might like it. I still can’t remember everything about you, Maria. I’m sorry. I can remember you were…worth more than that. But I remembered something new a few days ago, something you used to draw."

He holds the stems of his gift gingerly, as if he would kill them if he held them too tightly, as if it mattered. These flowers were already doomed to die; he plucked only the ones he saw that were already snapped from the wind, or wilting from the changing seasons, or already taken from the ground. Perhaps those would be unsuitable for most.

Shadow didn’t think Maria would want him to kill more for her memory, no matter if they were only plants.

And…it was his own heart that told him to continue to speak to her when he could. The world’s legends of some sort of afterlife were too massive and varied for him to swallow, but if there was one, then he found it would only be sensible to give gifts that would reach it.

“I don’t know what all of these are. I’m sure you could tell me about most of them,” he says, holding them in front of his face. Not enough to hide his eyes, still fixed on the ARK. “I know the white ones are daisies. This group of pink are called carnations, and this yellow one is a tulip. This other pink one…is a rose.”

He falters. Would she appreciate only facts? No, she’d wanted to know everything. How, why, when--he could read it in her face and tone, though her voice speaking exact questions was still beyond his grasp. She was going to have a mind on par with her grandfather.

No. No thoughts spared for Gerald, not now. Nothing of cruelty, no matter what its origins. Not of the Doctor, and he can't tell her about his 'work' just yet. He is dangerous and he fights for the world's safety, yet he can't verbalize it in a way that sounds so violent and ugly. But how else can he do it? How else can he protect the world as she wished?

The rose's thorns were cut off, but one remains. He's careful not to catch it on his finger.

"…The rose was given to me. The faker had plenty from Amy Rose, a girl who always follows him. He caught me--" no, ‘caught’ implies some sort of guilt or wrongdoing; for once, this mattered. "--he. Found me holding the daisies. He thought I would 'appreciate’ it." He shakes his head. “You do more, I’m sure. It isn’t your favorite color, though, is it?" A question on the edge of a guess. She was never wearing pink in his memories, and any photographs he found were sepia and so impossible to discern.

He moves a cluster of light purple forward, each with long, narrow petals. "These were being given away by a rabbit. Her name is Cream. She’s not as sharp as you, but you would get along with her. She loves the world nearly as much as you did, Maria.”

His throat catches. Cowardice, again, when he holds the flowers even in front of his eyes until he can blink away the burning.

_Cream is fortunate she can be down here._

The world is so quiet. Grass stretching out every which way, rippling over knolls with occasional whispers of wind. His last word, her name, is swallowed by the soft darkness.

No, not only Cream. She was born here--she is fortunate she isn't dying, and he is fortunate he can experience this world where she can't. He has to be. Maria's death was to save him, as unworthy a cause as he was in comparison, and he has to remember to appreciate the world. For her sake. 

With a physical shake of his head, Shadow pulls himself together. If she is there, she doesn’t need to see him like this. Not right now. He needs to tell her more. Confess, even, and he pulls the flowers away to hold them towards the sky.

"I…don’t stop and see the world often enough, Maria. I know you’d want to see it all. I remembered that recently, too. Did...did you know, there are whole festivals of flowers that exist." He isn't factually certain of this, but he must be right. The people here celebrate so many things, and nature is one of their top priorities. "I won't miss the next one I find. And I’ll learn the names of these, so I’m--so I can be sure what I'm telling you, all of it. So we..."

He can't completely blink away the burning, this time. "...so we can know the same things again," he whispers.

He existed because of her. He grew by her side. She was his whole world before she was lost, and he loathed how much of her life was stolen even after her death.

It takes some gentle fumbling to untangle the last few from the stems of the rest. "I found these, as well. They’re small, but I think you’d like them the most."

They’re a tiny sprinkling of blue, the color she wore, the color of the sky--too pale to be her eyes, but Maria wouldn’t care.

"They’re the first I found, Maria. Growing in a field with a dozen other kinds, but these were the only I picked before I thought you’d like to see more. They remind me of you. The good memories. Your smile. Your voice. I-I think...I can nearly...hear your laugh again."

The edges of the sky aren’t as dark as they once were. He knows, more than anything in his life, he doesn't want to cry in front of her. She would hurt for him. He's done enough. Gerald's done enough. The entire world, with its hatred and beauty, has done enough.

High above, the empty ARK seems to blink.

He needs to leave. He needs to do something that is enough, that he can _feel_ is enough.

"...I will visit the space colony again, Maria-–this I vow. Soon. I’ll bring as many flowers as I can carry. I won’t forget them. And with these in the ARK, in our home, I will always remember you," he says, clenching the fist without flowers.

It isn't an empty idea, emotion-fueled as it starts. Flowers were never allowed on the ARK; it could be dangerous, for Maria, for the experiments. 'Foriegn contaminates’. If he sees them there…he’ll know something’s wrong. If something ruins his memory again. 

"I vow," he tells her again, stepping back, allowing the bouquet to fall on the flattened grass. "Maria."

A flash of light, and Shadow is gone.

* * *

 

He keeps more than one part of his promise. He has few free moments, but he makes them for this.

Daisy he knew, rose, tulip–the purple were called 'asters’, and--

Shadow should have guessed.

 _“Forget-me-not,”_ he murmurs. "Maria...I suppose this fits you best."

 


End file.
